


together while apart

by sebstahn



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 20:46:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebstahn/pseuds/sebstahn
Summary: (erik writing to charles in their future, or maybe since the very beginning.)"darling—tell me you hate me. put your fist against my cheek and love me like it's always felt."





	together while apart

i didn't realize what you meant at the time.

 

your hands around my chest—that feeling became everything to me, became what i felt when you looked into my eyes, trying to pry into my mind with just that.

i don't know how you did it—how you read my mind by watching the way my muscles tense, how my lips flattened—but you did.

you'd have to get used to that later in our lives, learning to know me without me letting you, a metal barricade between the bond you first formed with me, my mind and yours, together while apart.

 

that was my fault.

 

you see, i feel you even when you're not there. i know when you're saying my name even when you're miles away.

my love, i know the way a needle feels against my skin, but your voice punctures so much deeper; it makes the crevices of my mind bleed and the caverns of my soul rupture.

and maybe that it what you intended from the start.

 

 _you're not alone_.

 

but what does that mean if i am alone with you—

if you make me feel more whole than i ever have been, but also the most empty i ever have been.

you pulling me from the water, me watching your lips catch water as your head bobs on the surface. you and me, room to room, movement to movement. you read my mind and it stopped time.

 

see, you still don't understand.

our paths did not diverge.

they have been one in the same since i first felt your voice in my brain.

 

 _calm your mind_.

 

but it is not so easy to do when my mind is drowning and that voice of yours pulls me deeper in.

 

you don't get it, my love. it is not the bullet that harms me, but the hand that pulled the trigger—

i regret, it is much the same with you.

 

my apologies are not enough. your hands on my chest again, but this time with blood in my mouth and your teeth in my heart.

and even now, writing this—these words i know you'll never read: i want you to know how it all truly felt.

that i lied when i told you i buried what you saw in me. i tried to, believe me. i tried to be everything you hated in me, because maybe then it'd be easier to see that look in your eyes. no longer just disappointment, but expectation and regret.

 

 _yes_ — _tell me you hate me. put your fist against my cheek and love me like it's always felt._

 

but it isn't buried. if it were, then these words are crawling out from their graves.

 

no, it's only drowning.

my love, my love—yes, i am still drowning.

 

and the worst part is—i can't beg you to come and look for me, to use my mind as a map to me, use my fingers as anchors and my eyes as oceans.

 

because you already are.

even when you've given up on me you haven't given up.

 

_your mind crushing mine—what is it you could possibly want from a tarnished soul?_

 

my love: you and i, we play pretend. we play strangers in a crowd, longing for another glance after the first one proved all too addicting. we play strangers on a telephone, dialing wrong numbers because we love the unfamiliar sound we hear.

 

you know everything about me.

even when i am hiding, i am in plain sight to you.

 

you, me, room to room, movement to movement, water to air, mind to metal, revelation to devastation.

 

 _there’s so much more to you than you know_.

 

are you sure?

are you sure.

 

my love, it hurts. it hurts.

a bullet in your back and your voice in my head.

 

it is the way you push your fingers into your temple, or the way your shoulder brushes against mine sometimes.

 

if and if and if.

a constant: you and you and you.

 

and do you believe it would have been better if we'd never met.

if i had drowned myself in that water, if your voice hadn't inked my soul the way it had. if i’d died and you'd continued walking.

 

do you feel anything when you look out the ocean, when you see a chessboard without a player to challenge you.

does it hurt to know i’m not there, the way it hurts me?

 

you don't understand—i’d love you, love you forever.

tell me you hate me—break my heart, drown my mind. it doesn't hurt me.

 

my love, it doesn't even hurt me.

my love, my pain—will you and i ever be the same?

when you had a gun to my head was the happiest i’ve ever been.

 

is there a universe, my love, where

_goodbye, old friend_

means _i wish you would ask me to stay._

is there a universe where you will—

where i will.

is there a universe where _goodbye_ means

 _i love you, i always have_.

 

sometimes i think you control gravity as well as the mind—time and space, together—because, around you, i feel weightless. i feel the ground give in beneath my weight when you walk into a room, i see your lips moving and it distracts me from the words you're saying.

 

my darling, my love, my ever-dying sun—

just tell me you love me.

for this universe is dying, and our time is running short.

 

just tell me you love me while we're together, because we'll be apart, yet again, too soon.

just tell me you love me, with your thoughts or with your voice.

use your hands to push me down, to drown me in it.

 

just tell me that you need me, like you did when we were younger, 

and i’ll tell you i want you by my side, like i did when we were younger.

 

darling—love me in the next life, in the next universe,

since this one could never be enough.

 

your voice may try and reach me but it will never pull me from the dirt. i am alone, my dear. that is how it started, and that is how it will end.

 

my love.. my pain. i do not sleep. your voice—it is what keeps me awake, but is also the only thing can ease the static of my thoughts.

 _calm your mind_ —tell me with your hands, with your body and lips on mine. put our pain to rest. tell me i mean more to you than i truly do.

 

i feel all the metal in my body, in the earth, and i want to drive it through my skull.

 

darling—promise me a list of endless things that you'll never keep, and i’ll do the same. i just want to feel like we did that day, my tears becoming yours, a smile forming that i, for once, didn’t end up feeling guilty for.

just tell me you love me—together while apart. tell me before you leave this earth, martyred and broken. tell me before i go, buried in the sand where i first lost you.

my love—this world cannot contain us, cannot contain who we are. i’ll bend it in half and you’ll stop time. tell me you love me, tell me you love me.

 

let your voice break my bones and i will thank you.

 

tell me to calm my mind, and it’ll ease my soul.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: sebstahn  
> instagram: ncpenthe


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